Transferring old photos and slides to a digital format brings numerous benefits, not to mention the space savings. Say goodbye to all the old photo shoeboxes and slide carousels in your basement or garage! New digital services allow your precious images to be converted to DVDs, online sharing, and other fun digital media. This untraps your photos and allows them to be shared and enjoyed with your family and friends, whether they’re in Boston or Boise.
Overview
If you’re like most families, you have dozens of boxes and albums of old photos, as well as carousel trays of old 35mm slides. All of these pre-digital formats unfortunately can be considered trapped in time, as they sit wasting away in homes around the world. The photos in the boxes get torn or crushed, while the plastic cellophane pages in the photo albums react with the chemical makeup of the photos and often discolors them, turning them yellow over time. Storage in extreme environmental conditions, such as the heat of an attic or the cold and humidity of a basement, also affects the quality of the photographic paper.
Slides fare somewhat better, since they are usually protected in circular trays that house anywhere from 20-140 slides. It is difficult, however, to find a specific slide without having to load up the projector and go through each slide. And the once popular individual slide view finders that were manufactured in the 20th century are fast disappearing.
Digital Transferral
With the advent of digital cameras that are now extremely popular and affordable, families for the first time find that they have significant photo and slide collections in
multiple formats: those images that typically pre-date the 1990s, and those taken during or after the 90s, when more families turned to digital media. It’s time to open the door to enjoying and sharing your older photos and slides by ensuring all of the older formats are transferred to digital.
This process uses equipment to scan each image and produce a digital version without ever actually touching the photo or slide, so the original is never harmed. Specialized software enables the now-digitized image to be restored and enhanced, fixing such problems as red-eye, scratches on the original, or distorted colors.
Benefits
Once in digital form, there are four clear benefits to the new format:
- Organize, combine and label – It’s easy to arrange and identify your transferred images once they are in digital format. Moving them around is as simple as moving them around on your PC screen. And you can combine all of your memories, both pre-1990s and post-1990s, into one digital collection of DVDs or storing online. Say goodbye to boxes and carousels that take up space in the garage.
- Make them look better – It’s a fact that the old photos and slides we grew up with do not improve with time, but rather, lose their quality. With digital technology, you can have them restored to their original color and vibrancy.
- Preservation – Natural disasters aside, we’ve seen what happens just with the simple passing of time – photos are unorganized and unlabeled, remaining a mystery to future generations. Storing the images in a digital format preserves them for generations.
- Enjoy and share – What good are memories if no one can ever enjoy them? If you never view the photos in the boxes, look through the albums, or fire up the slide projector, those images are lying dormant. You can do fun things with digital photos:
- Build photo books online
- Produce photo calendars and other family momentos as gifts
- Use them as revolving “wallpaper” (background screens) on your computer
- Send them to an iPod or mobile phone for your kids or grandkids
- Create DVD slideshows for special occasions, like a birthday, anniversary or graduation
It’s not only fun but easy today to convert old photos and slides to a digital format. You can join the digital revolution!
